We swear we're not lazy, we've actually been busy.

We apologize for the scarcity of posts recently, but we’ve been swamped at our real gig (and as much as we like this one, those Goggle AdSense dollars don’t pay the rent) and unable to blog beneath our boss’s nose. You understand, right? We’re sure the six of you still with us do. At any rate, to catch up we’re going all out with a hot ass August edition of Things We Know.

1.) The Colts should absolutely NOT sign Tank Johnson.
- Sure, Lovie Smith has talked him up to Tony Dungy and he’s a quality DT, but this is not the solution to the Colts defensive problems. He can’t even play for the first eight regular season games. By all means Bill Polian, take a long look at Gerard Warren and Warren Sapp, just keep away from Tank.

2.) Superbad is going to be the shit.
- We’ll be seeing it tonight or tomorrow, but some friends in the industry have seen test screenings and say it may be the best yet from Apatow and Co. “Better than Virgin?” we asked. “Yep, better than Virgin,” they responded. So there’s that.

3.) Michael Vick is headed for the concrete floor hotel.
- All indications point to a plea deal being struck sometime today. In other news, our Vick dog chew toy is on backorder and should be here by the season opener.

4.) You should NOT go see The Ten.
- We know it’s tempting, because Paul Rudd is in it, but you’ll thank us later.

5.) Monday Night Football is tolerable again.
- We’ve always had a soft spot for Ron Jaworski and his Ivy League-style breakdown of film, but we never imagined how wonderful he’d be in the Monday Night booth. He even makes Kornheiser funny again.

6.) If you’re not psyched for this weekend’s Cards/Cubs series, get fucked.
- Both teams are within 2 ½ games of first place in the NL Central, and they get it on four times at Wrigley. This is as good as baseball gets, people, even if it’s two mediocre teams from a shitty division.

7.) The new Madden is – pardon our cliché – the balls!
- We have yet to take the Xbox 360 plunge (though the price drop has us wavering), but we’ve been playing it at work all week and it’s great. Not late 90’s/early 00’s great, but as great as it gets with an exclusive NFL license.

8.) Did anyone else know that The Invasion comes out this weekend?
- Here’s another lesson kids: stop remaking classic films that were just fine to begin with.

9.) Mercifully, John From Cincinnati was killed in its sleep.
- We watched one episode and gave up. Others were more lenient, patient and forgiving, but what did they ultimately gain?

10.) David Beckham still doesn’t have our attention.
- Even though we live in Los Angeles (Santa Monica, really), we couldn’t care less. And, apparently, so could the rest of you.

Who has bigger arms, Jeter or Becks?

Who cares who's the better athlete or who's accomplished more (both on the field and off), what we want to know is "who benches more, Jeter or Beckham?" Judging by this picture, taken during Beckham's recent visit to the Yankees locker room, it's a close race. Of course, Jeter has hit 20 homers in a season before and Beckham can't use his hands. We'll give the nod to the Yankee panty stripper.

In case you somehow missed it...

Barry Bonds' 756th home run has landed. And it was nabbed by a Mets fan who's now quite richer than the rest of us. Here's the full video, complete with Hank Aaron's salute:

Barry Bonds is armed and dangerous (to baseball, that is)

We don't care that Barry Bonds (allegedly) used performance-enhancing drugs to set the single-season home run record. Many players were doing it, baseball wasn't testing for it, and baseball is a competition. In competition, you do whatever you can within the rules to win. Bonds did that. Is he an asshole? Definitely. Are the numbers he's put up over the past seven years faulty when compared to what past legends like Ruth, Mays and Mantle did during their careers? Probably. But honestly, when Bonds hits his next - and 756th overall - home run, we'll be extremely relieved. We can't stand talking and hearing about this record ad nauseam any longer.

We will watch this delightful video, though.

The Bronx is still burning

Yes, the ESPN miniseries is watchable at best - John Turturro really saves it - but you have to admit George Steinbrenner is the bastard who keeps on giving. Just read this article to see why.

There'll be no Twins games for a bit...

If you haven't seen the footage of the Minneapolis bridge collapse yet, go here. Absolutely awful.

Rick Ankiel will be here soon...

Our feelings for Rick Ankiel are nothing compared to the debilitating mancrush/torch Deadspin carries for him, but we liked the guy, too. There's a chance, however slight, he'll be called up to the Bigs before the end of the regular season. We doubt it happens, but it's encouraging. Not as discouraging, however, as this:

Welcome to Judgement Week

In about five hours, the St. Louis Cardinals season could come to an end. Many fans, myself "somewhat" included, think this has already happened. The loss of staff ace Chris Carpenter to Tommy John surgery crippled the Cards' hopes of a miracle second-half comeback. Without Carpenter, and with Mark Mulder still rehabbing, the Cards de facto ace is Adam Wainwright. Look, Wainwright is a big talent with a bright future, but he's not an ace. And he's not someone you'll see headlining a playoff rotation.

At 8:05 EST tonight, the Cubs will roll into St. Louis, plop Carlos Zambrano's round ass on the mound, and attempt to drive a dagger through the hearts of Cardinal fans everywhere. This will hurt. It will hurt not only because it's always painful to lose to the Cubs, but because it's excruciating to lose to the Cubs as you essentially hand them the division lead. Make no mistake, if the Cubs sweep the Cardinals, it will be a referendum on both teams' seasons. The Cards, last October notwithstanding, have been a .500 team for the past calendar year. The Cubs, atrocious last year, have added hitting, pitching, speed and a steady hand in the dugout.

This is Judgement Week: a six-game homestand against the Cubs and Brewers. By late Sunday, the Cardinals will either be dead and dirt-filled or clinging to life. We're hoping for the latter. After all, training camp doesn't even start until Sunday.

In celebration of Aaron Harang

Not just because he's on our fantasy baseball team - but also because he's 10-2 with 138 strikeouts - we present to you this horrible YouTube capture of a Harang no hitter on a video game. Why someone would capture this, we don't know. But we do know that Harang pitched 10 innings of 1-run, 10-strikeout baseball last night. That's impressive, even more so when you consider he pitches for the worst team in the NL. How he's 10-2 is beyond me. Enjoy.

But really, just how awesome is Chris Young?

Lost in all the hyperbole and column inches spent on Brad Penny and Jake Peavy thus far is the fantastic season Chris Young has quietly been putting together for the San Diego Padres. Mercifully selected to the NL All-Star Team via online balloting, Young is now 9-3 on the season with a microscopic 1.85 ERA after pitching seven shutout innings against the NL's most potent lineup last night.

Against the Phillies, he allowed two hits, three walks (all to Ryan Howard) and struck out six, while no runners landed past second base. This ex-Princeton basketball standout is our pick for the best pitcher in baseball this season. Sure, Santana will probably pass him prior to October, but we feel some attention is warranted. He gets no run support (he's won five 1-0 games this season) and he plays on the West Coast, so he's facing an uphill climb in the Cy Young voting. But we'll remember.

Your Yovani Gallardo update

This man-crush of ours on Brewers rookie phenom Yovani Gallardo isn't going away, and neither is he. Just a few weeks ago, when the Brew Crew owned a healthy lead in the NL Central, Ben Sheets was pitching like an ace and Chris Capuano was set to return from the DL, Yovani Gallardo seemed destined for the bullpen.

He was. In fact, he's made three bullpen appearances thus far in the month of July, giving up three earned runs with two walks and eight strikeouts in 9 1/3 innings of work. For the season, he carries a sparkling 2.83 ERA, which is why we follow his every move with such fervor. And now, with all-star Sheets headed to the DL for four-to-six weeks, we'll finally get a long look at the 21-year-old tantalizer. Our prediction? He makes eight starts, goes 4-2 with a 3.30 ERA and strikeout numbers in the low-50's.

He takes the mound in a little over an hour, people. Diamondbacks at the Marlins. MLB.TV. Be there.

Gary Sheffield wants to know if you have the letter

We're not sure how many of you caught Garry Sheffield's appearance on Real Sports last night, but we were fascinated. Not so much by what he said, but by how he said it, the way he shuffled nervously, and the gravitas shown by Real Sports newbie Andrea Kramer. Sheffield told us all about how he and Barry Bonds used to be best pals, until he was told to fall in line with Bonds' communist training regimen. Sheffield gladly "put cream under his tongue" and "rubbed the clear on his legs," yet he still doesn't consider himself a steroid user. According to Sheff, steroids are only "sticking a needle in your butt."

Experts on steroids we're not; we've only dabbled in creatine and protein, but steroids can be taken numerous ways. Under your tongue is a viable entry point into the body, as is through the rubbing of a cream. Think of steroids like cocaine, or any other drug. You use cocaine without snorting it. Same with shooting heroin. We've seen a friend snort Tylenol before, but we wouldn't advise it. Getting a Tylenol-induced nosebleed to clot is no one's idea of a fun Saturday night.

Anyway, Sheffield condemned the Yankess treatment of black players, but said he didn't believe Joe Torre to be a racist. He made a point of emphasizing that Derek Jeter was half-black, half-white, so he didn't understand the pressures and problems Sheffield faced in the clubhouse. But the best moment of the entire evening (except for the segment featuring a one-eyed golf prodigy) was Kramer's relentless prodding of Sheffield about his contact with George Mitchell concerning MLB's steroid investigation.

Kramer asked if Sheffield had been approached by Mitchell to talk about steroids. Sheffield said he wasn't sure, that maybe his business manager would know. Kramer then asked someone offscreen if they could verify whether or not his business manager had been contacted. Sheffield, eyes bugging, asked the same person the same question, in much the manner a boyfriend asks a girlfriend "did you see anything weird at the party tonight?"

His business manager had received a letter from Mitchell, which was "news" to Sheffield. Uh huh. We believe you Sheff. We believe that you believe.

Ryan Howard will not be getting an iPhone

As if Ryan Howard's two bombs in the Phillies butchering of the Dodgers yesterday wasn't enough, the reigning NL MVP is pouring it on. Courtesy of The 700 Level, we've discovered that Howard's teaming up with Verizon, a.k.a. Satan. We can't lie, we're Verizon customers. We get both our cell phone and DSL service through them. We hate both, but a contract's a contract and we have to honor that contract. There's no franchise tag in telecommunication.

But we can't blame Howard, although this probably precludes him from getting an iPhone, or at least using it in public. He doesn't want a Jessica Simpson-type controversy on his hands. And we can't mention this without pointing to a delicious quote from the Verizon marketing tool spearheading this little business venture.

"Just as Ryan brings the power of his bat to the ball park every game, Verizon brings the power of its unequalled network to its customers every day."

Verizon, like He-Man, has the power. It's the network, my ass.

Come, let us celebrate the misery of the Pirates

Being that we're still in our mid-20's, our earliest tangible memories of the game of baseball are the time we accidentally hit our catcher in the teeth with an aluminum bat and the early-90s wars waged between the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Atlanta Braves. Doug Drabek. Sid Bream. MLB playoff commercials on CBS that actually made you think, "Holy shit. I HAVE to see this game." For our money, this was baseball at its finest - and the Cardinals weren't even all that good. To help us remember just how old we are now, the writers at Bugs and Cranks have created a video commemorating how much our world has changed since the Pirates last had a winner.

Thanks to Deadspin for the link. And, as always, we blame Barry Bonds.

Man push cart

Barry Bonds hates you, the media, and he's also not so fond of the laundry cart. He (essentially) flipped one off and tipped the other over yesterday following an 0-for-5 performance in (another) Giants loss. That record isn't going to just break itself, Barry.

Still not sure what's going on with this headline business, but in case you were wondering, here's what we would've used: We'd love to give Dane Cook the super finger.

On closer inspection, that sounds obscene and horrible, kind of like discovering that Dane Cook will be the centerpiece of MLB's largest ever postseason marketing blitz. It's called "There's Only One October," just as there's only one Dane Cook. Deadspin mirrors our feelings on Cook, and kindly points us in the direction of someone who perfectly articulates just how horrible - and far-reaching - an influence Cook has been.

Something's amiss with the headline-creating tool on the blog, so for the time being this post shall remain nameless. We're recapping the MLB season's first half - in short, quick bursts.

1.) An A-bomb for Aaaaaaaaaaaa-Rod.
- Despite some nasty off-field issues (a muscular stripper, an anti-social wife, that whole will he opt out or won't he thing), A-Rod has posted some eye-gouging numbers in the first three-plus months of 2007 season. We wish him nothing but the best, because we're still holding out hope for a cut of that $30 million he'll be making next year.

2.) The Cardinals have come crashing back to Earth.
- Chris Carpenter went down, Albert Pujols lost his power, Scott Rolen and Jim Edmonds are - somehow - playing older than their age, and did we mention Kip Wells and Anthony Reyes?

3.) Ichiro will punch himself in the face (you know, if you're into that).
- In his walk year, Ichiro is batting over .360, on pace for 240-plus hits, and generating more killer quotes than a snippet from Elijah Dukes' radio show. The Mariners are also quitely making their move in the AL West. Who needs a manager, anyway?

4.) Prince Fielder IS Ryan Howard.
- Seriously, the Brewer first baseman with the royal name is lapping the field in the NL MVP race. Like everyone else, we thought this was a year or two off in the distance. So much for learning curves.

5.) Your 2007 NL first-half ERA crown winner: Chris Young.
- We just wanted to give him a little recognition, seeing how Tony La Russa tried to leave him off the NL All-Star team and everything. Quick, it's a game-seven situation, who do you put out there, Young or Peavy? A couple months ago this was a no-brainer. No longer.

6.) Barry Bonds is going to hit 756 - eventually.
- We're not anti-Bonds because he did the juice (who didn't?); we're anti-Bonds because he seems like an astonishingly huge prick. Then again, we don't want A-Rod to break it either. Jr. Griffey fucked this up for everyone.

7.) Dice-K mania really isn't all it's cracked up to be.
- The millions the Red Sox sunk into the Japanese fireballer have yielded good, not great, results, but remember back when every Dice-K start was a must see? We took off three afternoons in April alone to watch him pitch. Now, we could care less.

8.) All your hotties belong to Brad Penny.
- The Dodgers' 10-game winner with the greasy hair and groovy paunch is mowing down batters on the field and a bevy of C-list actresses (Alyssa Milano, Eliza Dushku) off it. Neither makes us want to venture to Dodger Stadium again anytime soon. We've heard "Cardinals suck" quite enough, thank you.

9.) The Cubs LOVE spending money.
- What's $300 million buy you these days? If you're a Cubs fan, it's a winning percentage just over .500. Actually, that's probably worth it.

10.) The records are falling, the records are falling...
- Frank Thomas hit his 500th home run, Craig Biggio his 3,000th hit, and sometime in the next few months A-Rod and Manny Ramirez will both do the former, while Ichiro might have the latter by August. Is nothing sacred anymore?

Gallardo, Gallardo, we'll see ya, tomorrow...

Just for the record, we know we have a little bit of a man crush on Brewers rookie ace Yovani Gallardo. But, in our defense, we've been preaching his worthiness to our fantasy baseball leaguemates for months and when he finally arrived in the bigs we felt validated. Gallardo was 1-0, with a 2.79 ERA and 19 strikeouts over the 19 innings his three starts encompassed. He's gone now - sort of. Brewers manager Ned Yost is moving Gallardo to the bullpen, to make way for the returning Chris Capuano.

Now, Capuano is a far inferior pitcher, and Dave Bush is one of the NL's most inconsistent starters, but we think Yost is doing the right thing. The Brewers have an excellent shot at winning the NL Central this season, and if they do, they'll need Gallardo at 100 percent for the playoffs. Burning out his young arm in the month of July would make that unlikely. Perhaps the Journal-Times sums up the situation best:

So far, between Class AAA Nashville and Milwaukee, Gallardo has pitched 97 innings. He’s 58 innings away from heading into uncharted waters — not a place you want to go with a rookie pitcher. If Gallardo makes about 15 more starts this season and averages six innings a start, Gallardo will have around 187 innings. That’s a lot of innings for a youngster and doesn’t include the postseason. The list of pitchers who got burned by a team pushing them is long and large (just ask Chicago Cubs right-hander Kerry Wood) and the Brewers don’t want Gallardo on that list.
By moving Gallardo into the bullpen, Yost is keeping his youngster’s arm fresh for the playoff chase in August and September. That formula seemed to work for the Detroit Tigers last year when they rested rookie Justin Verlander during his rookie season. A healthy and rested Verlander helped lead the Tigers to the World Series.

Seems reasonable enough, doesn't it? Does it mean we'll have to calm our Gallardo juices over the next month while Bush pitches his way out of the Brewers' rotation? Yeah, it does. But we can handle that. Just don't take away our Grady Sizemore.

This is why ladies love Grady

We interrupt one of the laziest workdays of the year - we won't be here tomorrow - to present to you our pre-season pick for AL MVP: Grady Sizemore. Those bastards A-Rod and Magglio Ordonez have thrown serious wrenches into our plan, but Mr. Sizemore still stands a decent chance at garnering a few votes. He slammed a grand one last night, and he is currently third in the league in runs, fourth in walks, eighth in homers, and second in stolen bases. Not bad. We think if he picks up the pace in the second half and ends up with 30 homers, 100 RBI's and 50 stolen bases - and the Indians win the AL Central - it should be a no-brainer.

Really, is Ordonez going to keep this up? We think not. Besides, Ladies Love Grady.

About those all-star selections...

Okay California fans, we know it was you: Barry Bonds slipped into the National League All-Star starting lineup at the 11th hour and we're placing the blame square on the Golden State. We don't get up around the Bay much, but seeing as how San Fran is one of the highest populated cities in the nation, and is pretty much the only place Barry Bonds is adored...

It was you fuckers. Way to go. Eh, it's not like Alfonso Soriano was that much more deserving, anyway. Bonds, for all his diminishing physical tools, is still an on-base percentage monster. We heard on First Take this morning (yes, we watched it) that Bonds still gets on base one out of every two times he steps to the plate. That's insane. And, for the record, we thought Bonds should have been elected to the team. The NL's crop of outfielders this year is - kindness in 3, 2, 1... - extremely mediocre. We just didn't want to see him voted onto the team, by the fans, no less.

Now that that's out of the way, onto the real issue: the snubs. Who didn't make the team that was deserving? In the NL, that would be practically every starting pitcher who's had success this year. Tony La Russa (and as Cardinal fans, it pains us to say this) dropped the ball (along with the players) by selecting six - six! - relief pitchers to the NL team. The AL roster is much better, mostly due to the fact they have much better players to choose from. But there are still some glaring omissions:

1.) Chris Young, SP, Padres
- San Diego fans are pissed, and rightly so. He's 8-3 with a 2.14 ERA. We know, he plays in Petco, but come on...

2.) Orlando Cabrera, SS, Angels
- How upset are the Angels about the snubbing of O-Cab? Enough to take veiled shots at the players selected ahead of him. Beautiful.

3.) Curtis Granderson, OF, Tigers
- The Al is stacked at the OF position, and it hurts that Granderson is the least visible outfielder on his own team, but he's on pace for 300 total bases!

4.) Ian Snell, SP, Pirates
- Teammate Freddy Sanchez may have won the NL batting title last year, but Snell has an ERA under three and a 7+ K/9 rate. He's doing this for the Pirates.

5.) Kevin Youkilis, 1B, Red Sox
- Yes, the game is being played in an NL park so they have to sneak Big Papi in as a first baseman, but isn't is kind of insulting to his team's first baseman, the one having a better season than Ortiz?